Brad's Adventure

Days 74 – 81

Miles 1091 – 1196

On the fourth of July we did some hiker chores in the morning, then later in the afternoon we took an Uber to downtown South Lake Tahoe area. It’s very touristy, and kind of unique in that the Nevada border is right in town. Immediately on the Nevada side is a moderately sized casino. We went to some Mexican restaurant for dinner then went to the “Irish Pub”. I put that in quotes because it was a hilariously non-irish place. Even though the world cup was going on, all of the TVs had baseball on, and the bartender was wearing a dodgers shirt. There were signs plastered all over the joint saying that foreign IDs would not be accepted… And the live music was a bunch of old dudes in American flag shirts.

After food and a drink or two we swung by the CVS and the Europeans bought more beer, and we walked down to the beach. It was kind of a madhouse. The entire street was filled with people walking down to the waterfront, the occasional car would show up and be honking and yelling for people to move but hey, you’re the one who chose to live on the waterfront in Lake Tahoe. At some point we passed some sort of… well I’m not really sure what it was supposed to be but there were two people shouting at the crowd to stop. The waterfront was apparently closed to the public or something. It wasn’t exactly clear what was going on which I think was part of the problem, but the scene kind of hilarious. The two, attendants, would stop two people and 50 would just walk right past. Our group ended up ignoring them and walking past.

We sadly weren’t able to get to the beach. I think they were charging money or something stupid like that. We found a good spot and the fireworks started around 10:45.

The display was insane, this video above was just the start of it and it got even crazier. After a mesmerizing 30 minutes that felt more like 5,  the finale ended and we promptly left to beat the crowd. At this point the old guys, Me Seth and Stefan, wanted to go home and the younger Brits went out to the bars. We walked off the beer for 20 minutes then stopped by five guys before taking an Uber back to camp. It was a successful 4th of July and I was glad we jumped ahead to experience it.

The original plan was that Seth was to visit his Grandpa, James had a hurt ankle and was gonna sit out the 70 miles we skipped, Stefan wanted to sit it out too because he needed to eat. Sandy and I were going to smash out the 70 miles in 3 days and then we’d leave Tahoe with the whole squad. Sandy was a little too hungover to hike on the 5th, and I decided to just head north and I’d make up the miles with Seth when he decided to come back. This wasn’t a huge deal as I’d already been planning on breaking off and going solo after Tahoe.

I got a ride back to the trail around 4 and started walking, officially solo now! I was excited to start pushing my limits now.

The trail started a few miles before Echo lake. Fun fact: the 2-3 mile section of trail around Echo lake is the only part of the PCT I’ve done before. I went to a running camp in high school that was somewhere around Tahoe and on the last day we ran around the lake. Another fun fact: Alex Honnold had been hiking in the desolation wilderness a few days before I went through, so I could have ran into him had I been a few days earlier.

It was a chill 13 mile evening to Gilmore lake. The mosquitos were horrendous but the lake was pretty.

The next day I was like a dog off a leash. No longer needing to wait for the group or stick to a plan, I kind of just hiked all day without taking breaks. Aside from one random 30 mile day in the desert I had been doing 20s and the occasional 23-25. My first full day solo I ended up going 35. I would have been excited had I not been limping by the end. I decided I needed to take a break every 3 hours from now on. At camp that night I saw Solaris, aka Micah who was now going by Cascade. Not someone I thought I’d ever see again on trail, he’s super fast. It was great to catch up. There were 8 people at camp and I got some comments about the 1.5 pound can of fuel I bought in Tahoe as kind of as a joke, just to be funny. It was 4 times bigger than the standard fuel can hikers carry. The goal is for it to last all the way to Oregon.

The next day I made it to Donner ski Lodge and hitched into Truckee. My feet were hurting super bad so I decided to get new shoes. I also finally found a collapsible cup. It took 400 miles, but it was the last piece of the collection I needed to start doing pour overs on the trail. That’s a coffee thing for those of you who wouldn’t know (looking at you Emily).

Oh yeah, this is also the day I saw my second bear. It was in the middle of the trail munching on a fallen log. Dodger, another hiker, had been yelling at it for a few min. The both of us yelled and threw a few rocks near it and finally got it to start moving. It walked down the trail for another few minutes and finally it veered off the trail and we were able to hike again. I tried to get a better video but it wouldn’t face us.

Anyways, In Truckee I swung by the brewery after the gear store and watched a world cup game. The lady at the brewery was super nice and offered to give me a ride at 7 when she got off work. I didn’t want to wait that long but I said if I couldn’t find another way I’d be back. I texted a trail angel who’d done the trail in ’24 and he said he’d give me a ride. Later when he was on the way to get me, he called me and had to cancel because his baby threw up all over his car while he was backing out of the driveway. He told me “yeah that’s why my baby’s trail name is blow-out” which I thought was pretty hilarious. I made my way back to the brewery only to find out the lady who offered me a ride had gone home early. Defeated, I did what anyone else would do when the plan falls apart, I ordered a beer. A guy chatting with the owner offered to buy my beer so I started chatting with him. He had done sections of the PCT in the past, and it turns out so had the owner of the Brewery. He offered to give me a ride back to the trail! I hiked a few miles and stayed at the Peter Grubb Hut. It’s a ski hut but they leave it open for hikers during the summer. It was pretty clean, there was a cute little mouse running around so I hung all my stuff up.

The next day was a big day. I tested out my strategy of taking a break every 3-4 hours to take my shoes off and it did help, although I still felt pretty beat up by the end. I just listened to an audiobook and cranked out the miles. Around 8pm I saw a swimming hole under the bridge, right before the road to Sierra city, and I just had to jump in. It had been a hot day. Even though the sun was down it still felt great. After that I road-walked down to Sierra city.

The next morning I got to see a couple familiar faces. Micah was there, along with Redtail, whom I’d camped with way back during week 1. I also saw Sonic and Alan, a couple other guys I’d briefly talked to.

Around 11am, after I had time to let my “Hungry Hiker Triple Threat” breakfast settle, I set out up the Sierra Buttes. I hiked out with an argentinian guy, his trail name is 18. We took what would have been a shortcut, up a forest service road that met up with the trail at the top of the Buttes.

I say “would have” because we ended up going on a little… adventure. Farout (our navigation app) told us there was a road that cut through the middle of a half-circle section of the forest service road. We got there and were a little suspicious, as it appeared to just be a dried out stream. We decided to just check it out and started scrambling up the fake road. It got steeper and steeper, and eventually we were doing legitimate class 5 climbing, in tennis shoes with packs on our backs. 18 apparently was as stubborn as I was, as neither of us even mentioned the idea of just turning around and walking up the road. We just started climbing. The mountain-side was a combination of short 10-15ft climbs, scrambling up loose gravel and rocks, and wading through thick brush. It wasn’t as scary as it sounds, although there were a couple 5.5+ moves, and the scramble parts were steep and on loose terrain. The scariest part was a 30ft traverse to the west that was pretty exposed, a “no fall zone” as climbers would say. A fall likely wouldn’t have been fatal, but it definitely would have ended the hike. After about 90 minutes of scrambling, climbing and bushwhacking,  we made it up back to the dirt road, it would have taken maybe 10 minutes to walk. It was the most fun I’d had on trail in a while. Walking 12 hours a day does get a little boring sometimes.

After I got to the top, the next 5ish miles were a nice ridgeline walk with good views of the surrounding area. Around 5:30pm was the crashout. I call it a crashout, but it wasn’t a crashout . It was an impulsive decision to end my hike. I felt very clear headed. I decided to turn around and go home. Simple as that. I missed my family, I missed my friends, and I missed my life back home. Hiking was getting boring, Norcal was a drag. I started the PCT for fun, and it stopped being fun, so I was going home.

I texted my parents from the ridge, and being my parents, I got an immediate phone call. They probably thought I was having a mental breakdown or something. I told them what I wrote above, and my dad decided he would come and get me.

I woke up the next morning and almost immediately changed my mind, if not had strong second thoughts. I went through a checklist I found online of questions to ask yourself before you quit.

Are you hydrated? No

Have you eaten in the past 3 hours? No

Have you bathed lately? No

Have you stretched recently? Literally not a single time on trail

Have you taken a break recently? No

Have you maintained contact with folks at home? No

Have you been sleeping enough? No

Have you been pushing yourself extra hard? Absolutely.

I’m not very good at self-care. Those reasons I had to quit were all definitely true, albeit exasperated by totally destroying myself mentally and physically over the past 100 miles. I also had seemingly nothing on the other side of the scale: reasons to keep going. I decided to hang out with my dad in Quincy for two days and think about it. I ended up deciding that finishing the trail in one year would be something I’d be proud of for the rest of my life. Some days out on the trail are gonna suck, just like days of normal life. Why not give it my full effort and be able to say I did my best, even if I didn’t make it the whole way, instead of leaving out of boredom?

So after two days of hanging out with my dad I decided I’d get back on trail. This post is already long so I’ll give the short version about our two days. Quincy is a great, super hiker friendly town. Before I could set my pack down I was offered a place to stay. An hour later I was again offered a place to stay and some guy handed me marijuana he had grown himself. I kept it to give to another hiker. I also got free ice cream. My dad and I went to the brewery, and the next day we stayed in and watched the world cup and then professional corn hole. The Vegas High-rollers were up against the Kentucky Kernels.

That’s it for this post. Stay tuned to find out more about the trials and tribulations of Northern California!